The Truth is in the Silence
by jadedlight
Summary: They say that Tom had taken her innocence. And that was true. She was no longer a child. She saw the world through different eyes, but she didn't think they were the eyes she was supposed to have.
1. Chapter One

TITLE: The Truth is in the Silence AUTHOR: Jennie (jennieslife)  
  
* * * * * * * * * *  
  
The Truth is in the Silence  
  
She awoke as a chill brought shivers coursing down her spine. Keeping her eyes closed, she slowly reached out her hand, feeling the cold sheets beside her.  
  
He had been up for a while.  
  
Ginny took a moment to stretch luxuriously and blinked into the darkened room. It was always hard to tell the time deep in the dungeons, a fact that she loved. She could lose herself down there without a thought to the world thriving beyond the cold stone ceiling. Faintly, she could hear the quiet murmur of the Slytherin common room above. If she could hear their voices at the cold depth she was at, that meant that the common room was full. It also meant that she had missed dinner.  
  
As if on cue, her stomach emitted a painfully empty growl and she pressed her hand firmly to the bare skin just below her belly button. Of course, it seemed to be her luck that she would miss dinner on the same day she had missed lunch as well. Pushing her hunger aside, she sat up, holding the deep green sheet to her chest, and she winced at the soreness in her thighs. She was going to pay for her over-exertion at Quidditch practice in the morning.  
  
The door swung open and he entered without so much as a glance to her on his bed which suited her just fine.  
  
Slipping out into the frigid cold, Ginny began the now-all-too-familiar chore of finding her scattered articles of clothing while Malfoy stood at the desk, flipping through a stack of parchments. Finding her skirt half- way underneath Blaise's bed--how it had traveled across the entire dorm room, she had no recollection--she shrugged into her now-wrinkled shirt.  
  
"Why didn't you wake me?" she asked, her voice sounding foreign in the silence of the room.  
  
Without looking at her, Malfoy gave up on the parchments he was sifting through and instead began rummaging through a book bag at his feet. "No reason in particular," he murmured distractedly, pulling a rolled parchment from the bag. He obviously found what he was searching for because as abruptly as he had entered the room, he turned to leave. Just before he closed the door, though, he turned to face her. He didn't smile or acknowledge her in any way other than his usual cold, mocking stare and Ginny met it with a patient one of her own.  
  
"Your knickers are on Goyle's nightstand." And, with that said, he was gone.  
  
Leaving her trainers untied, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail, retrieved her missing knickers (she shuddered to think what Goyle might have done with them if she'd left them), and grabbed the rumpled Slytherin cloak off the floor. It was too large for her; she had no clue to whom it had belonged to, and to be perfectly honest, she wasn't so sure she wanted to know. Making sure the hood hung low on her face, she casually made her way up the gelid stone steps and into the crowded common room. Ginny had learned long ago that the best way to avoid being seen was not to hide or sneak, but to walk directly into the situation she was trying to evade. And the Slytherin common room was no exception.  
  
The fire was roaring, chasing away the biting shadows, forcing them to claim refuge in the unoccupied corners of the room. She basked in the warmth a moment, absently noting that the bastard prince was no where to be found, and then traipsed through the middle of the room, hesitating once to dodge a poorly-aimed practice hex by one of the brothers dim (Goyle and Crabbe were taking turns on what suspiciously looked like Neville's toad). Few looked up and even fewer seemed to care. Then again, mystery girls leaving Malfoy's dorm was hardly out of the norm; they probably thought she was a random Ravenclaw (Malfoy never associated with Gryffindors and if they thought she was a Hufflepuff, she'd never have made it out the door without them attempting to humiliate her).  
  
She traveled through the halls, enjoying the way most students ducked out of her way. Ah, the wonders of being a Slytherin. It wasn't until she closed the door to the prefect's bathroom did she finally take off the cloak. She knew it was risky, using a bathroom someone could see her walk in and out of, but the only other alternative was Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and she already knew what a big mouth that ghost had--especially where Harry Potter was concerned. She didn't trust her farther than she could throw her.  
  
Ginny cleaned herself up as best she could--she charmed most of the wrinkles out of her shirt, washed her face, and tied her shoes--but she still looked as though she had just had a thoroughly enjoyable romp in bed. Suddenly unable to meet her own reflection, she carefully folding the material of the cloak so that the crest and the green inner-lining were bidden and tucked it under her arm before ascending the last three flights of stairs to Gryffindor tower.  
  
* * * * * * * * * *  
  
It had started two weeks earlier. No, scratch that. It began six *years* earlier when His diary found its way into her hands, into her very core. Ever since she woke up in foul smelling puddles deep down in the belly of the castle, she had changed. It was almost as if when Harry had severed the tether between her and Tom part of her never came back. Or some of Him stayed. It was hard to tell. She had once heard her parents talking late at night over tea not too long after what they referred to as 'The Incident.' They had said that she had lost her innocence. And that was true. She was no longer a child. She saw the world through different eyes, but she didn't think that they were the eyes she was supposed to have.  
  
He had never left her. Every night He haunted her dreams--soothing whispers, fevered touches, feathery kisses--every night He invaded her heart. Sleep never came easily to her anymore. She died every night. She died in His arms. But when she was with Him, she was whole. She could *feel.*  
  
In the waking world, she could find pleasure no where. Her family, though she loved them, seemed louder and brighter than ever before. But it was an uncomfortable brightness, one that burned her. They were no longer beautiful in her eyes. They were just... there. In fact, nothing held the beauty she once saw, especially the famous Harry Potter.  
  
He was a paragon of goodness and perfection. He was a shell of a person. He compromised everything he was to mold himself into the person everyone needed him to be. Ginny wondered if he ever thought about what *he* wanted to be instead of being a puppet of the masses. He was a hero in the eyes of many, but what did he have to give up to become that person? He was someone she should love, in fact she wanted to love him, yet there was... nothing.  
  
And then Ginny would tell herself that *she* was the one with the problem, not Harry. She was seeing things that weren't really there. And she would ignore the fact that she was never happy, faking smiles to appease her family, and she would close her eyes when the world became so bright that it hurt because it seemed to be the only thing she could feel. Time slipped past her and life continued on around her.  
  
At school, she took to remaining on the edges, her time occupied by observing those around her. No matter what she heard or witnessed, nothing seemed to penetrate. She just didn't care. It felt as though she were living from dream to dream.  
  
One day, during her fifth year, she had accidentally walked in on Harry and Jamie McCauley snogging in the Quidditch locker room. She had held her breath, waiting for tears, and when they didn't come, she had at least hoped to feel some shock. She had felt nothing, and she had watched as Harry's hand traced its way up the Hufflepuff's side to briefly play over the girl's breast. Sighing, Ginny had turned and left, wondering what was wrong with her.  
  
And that was why she had spent the last two weeks in Draco Malfoy's bed.  
  
She hated him--there weren't many around who could genuinely say they liked the git--but when she looked into his eyes, she got the vague feeling that if anyone could tell her what was wrong with her, it was him.  
  
It had been a Tuesday and Snape had been brutal in his homework assignments that morning so Ginny found herself in the library immersed up to her shoulders in books. At first, the crying had been so quiet, she thought she must've been mistaken. But then, as most things go, it seemed to be all that she could hear and she realized she had been reading the same sentence for some time. Sighing, she dropped her quill and tried to locate her distraction as fast as possible.  
  
In the next isle over, Ginny found a young Ravenclaw curled up on the floor, arms wrapped tightly around her legs, and face hidden in the depths of her black hair. A bit irritated at the disruption, especially by a Ravenclaw (of all people, they should realize the sanctity of the library), Ginny sat down and awkwardly patted the other girl's shoulder.  
  
Surprised, the girl sucked in a breath and looked up, her eyes rimmed in red.  
  
"Are you alright?" she asked, as soothingly as she could possibly manage. It wasn't that she wasn't sympathetic; it was just that she had two more feet to write before dinner. At that point, every minute counted.  
  
The girl--Ginny wracked her memory for a name... Lauren... no, Laura--shook her head sharply.  
  
Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Ginny gave it another shot. "Boy trouble?" She figured it was a fifty-fifty chance between being due to a boy or to a Slytherin.  
  
At that, Laura's eyes welled up even more and she emitted something that sounded like a strangled hiccup.  
  
Ginny wrinkled her nose and tried to think of a general thing to say. "Look, boys are just that--little boys. They aren't worth crying over--"  
  
"You wouldn't understand," Laura cut her off in a very small voice.  
  
"Try me," Ginny coaxed as Laura hesitated. "It's either me or someone else. You can't sit here crying in the library all night, can you?"  
  
And then, in an even tinier voice, she said a name. "Draco Malfoy."  
  
Ginny almost grinned. So she was right on both counts. It was a boy *and* a Slytherin. She should've gone into Divination instead of Arithmancy.  
  
"You're not the first girl that he made run and cry..." Ginny began, but she stopped as Laura whispered something, refusing to meet her eye. "What?"  
  
"I loved him."  
  
It took a moment for the full weight of the words to sink in.  
  
"Malfoy?" The younger girl hid her face in her hands. "Blonde haired, smirking, evil prat, Malfoy? Did you have an accident in potions--"  
  
"No! We... we were... seeing each other."  
  
"For how long?" Ginny didn't know whether she wanted to laugh out loud or smack some sense into the girl. She opted for neither and tried to keep her face neutral.  
  
"Three weeks."  
  
Huh. "And, let me guess, he suddenly decided he'd had enough of jerking you around and called the whole thing off."  
  
Laura nodded, on the verge of tears again, but admirably keeping them at bay.  
  
Desperately trying to come up with something consoling to say other than, 'You stupid bint, what did you expect? Once a git, always a git,' but before she could speak, the devil himself made his entrance.  
  
"Zabini," they heard him say through the bookshelves.  
  
"Malfoy," the other boy greeted.  
  
Ginny couldn't help but think that if they could hear their voices, then Zabini most likely heard their conversation as well. Laura's eyes widened and she looked as though she were on the verge of throwing up. Ginny quickly heaved the girl up and ushered her out the door.  
  
"Go back to your common room before he sees you crying over him. His ego doesn't need to get any bigger at this point." Laura nodded solemnly and darted down the hall, weaving through a group of Hufflepuff third years that were just let out of Charms down the hall.  
  
Once the girl was gone, Ginny went back to her essay but found herself staring at the blank page rather than writing.  
  
* * * * * * * * * *  
  
It was a week after the library incident when she found herself slowly packing up her things after Arithmancy class. If she could just stall long enough without making it look contrived-  
  
"Miss Weasley, do you have something you wish to ask me?" Professor Vector questioned from the front of the classroom.  
  
"No, ma'am. Sorry." Ginny heaved the bag onto her back and calmly looked to the older woman.  
  
"Nothing to be sorry about, dear girl. I just needed to step out before my next class and wanted to make sure there wasn't anything you needed. Have a good day, dear." The professor slipped out the door without waiting for a response.  
  
It wasn't twenty seconds later when Malfoy sauntered in. If he was surprised to see her standing prone in the middle of the class, he didn't show it.  
  
"I have a proposition for you," she said bluntly, not about to let him speak first.  
  
His eyebrow arched up as he sat in one of the front desks. "I think I'll have to pass," he said casually.  
  
"You won't," she intoned, taking a step towards him. "North Tower, the old Astronomy class room, midnight tonight." Taking a cue from her teacher previous, she left without waiting for Malfoy's response. It didn't matter, though. She knew he would come. He had an insatiable curiosity.  
  
* * * * * * * * * *  
  
TBC.  
  
Author's Note: I know this part was fairly short, but I find that first chapters tend to be that way, so my apologies. 


	2. Chapter Two

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter is dedicated entirely to J, whom, although I've never talked to, is a kick-arse person. Thanks for the review.  
  
The Truth is in the Silence  
Chapter Two  
  
Midnight came with a flurry of belated snow and second thoughts, both of which Ginny brushed aside as she closed the tiny window of the ancient tower room. The room itself reminded her vaguely of the attic back home (minus the ghoul) in that it was brimming with forgotten memories that, in Ginny's opinion, would be better off in a dumpster. But Dumbledore was clearly insane so the whole pack-rat thing worked for him. And that made her wonder what that said about her mother.  
  
With a slight flick of her wand and a whispered word, the two torches guarding either side of the door sprang to life, sending a shower of flickering gold over the stacks of outdated History of Magic texts and broken chairs alike. There was no place to sit, being a storage room and all, so she opted to perch herself instead, after carefully spreading her cloak over the top of it, on an old, battered desk that was missing all it's drawers but one.  
  
One thing that Ginny appreciated in life was punctuality, so when Draco Malfoy stepped through the narrow doorway as the last bell chimed the midnight hour, it took a considerable amount of effort to hold back a satisfied grin.  
  
He didn't see her at first, the torch was, after all, in between them, but once his eyes had adjusted, he glanced around the room with a controlled disgust before turning his attention to her. His posture, his glare, and even his smile were calculated perfectly to intimidate her and when she showed no outward emotion save boredom, he quirked an eyebrow but held his stance.  
  
"Curiosity killed the cat, Malfoy," she said softly and found she couldn't hold back a wry grin after all.  
  
"Are you attempting to threaten me?" he countered and, if it was possible, he sounded even less interested than he appeared to have been before.  
  
Ginny snorted in a decidedly undignified manner. "Hardly." She paused a moment then said casually, "I simply wanted to be your next 'Conquest of the Week.'"  
  
Much to his credit, he hardly reacted. "No." And with that word uttered, he turned to open the door and leave.  
  
Smoothly, she slipped off the desk but made no effort to physically stop him.  
  
"I have something none of the others have."  
  
His hand was still on the doorknob but he made no effort to open the door. "And what, pray tell, would that be?" he threw over his shoulder impatiently. "A misguided sense of self-worth?"  
  
"No expectations. No need for promises you don't intend to keep. Sod that, there's no need for talking at all."  
  
When he turned to her, there was an amused tilt to his mouth. "But you're forgetting two very important things: one, you're a Gryffindor, and two, you're a Weasley. Standards *are* standards, you know."  
  
With as little movement as possible, he swung the door open and left the room with a glance back. Ginny stood a moment in silent contemplation, her hand resting on the stone wall next to her, and she wished that the humiliation of the moment would permeate whatever barrier she had surrounding her emotions.  
  
But it didn't.  
  
She didn't even feel even the slightest bit annoyed at the fact that he had walked out on her. But, oh, she wanted to feel, wanted to love and laugh and be happy like those that she shared a common room with. Even bloody Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Saw-Darkness-All-The-Time, loved and hated passionately, and had fun and laughed with his friends. Why couldn't she?  
  
Why did simply living have to be so difficult?  
  
And suddenly she *did* feel like laughing. So she did, her voice sounding too high and too much on the verge of hysteria in the small room. She laughed at what had just happened and she laughed at what was to come... what was to become of her.  
  
* * * * * * * * * *  
  
Breakfast the next morning was as monotonous as usual. She ducked the flying sausages that always seemed to be the attack of choice during the morning meal. She avoided looking at Ron and Seamus, for doing so was a surefire way to make anyone lose their appetite. They are like pigs. And, most importantly, she thwarted any attempts her roommates would make at casual conversation by staring at them until they stammered and gave up. She wasn't afraid of offending any of them because, truth be told, she had discovered long before that Gryffindors had the innate ability to explain away any odd behavior.  
  
According to most, Ginny was simply not a morning person.  
  
Classes passed by slowly, mostly because she had actually read the assignments the night before unlike those (excepting the Ravenclaws, of course) sitting around her. Well, if she wasn't sure of the impact the numeral five had on the calculations of a transmuting charm, she definitely had it committed to memory by now.  
  
After dinner, she sat upon her broom watching as the sun set brilliantly, disappearing behind the distant trees deep in the Forbidden Forest. That is, until Harry sent a bludger in her direction for not practicing with the rest of them. Once she got back into the metaphorical game, the rest of the practice rushed by in a blur of feints and dives that she had done hundreds of times before.  
  
And when eight o'clock finally rolled around, all Ginny wanted to do was fly towards where the sun had set and keep on going until she caught up with it. But she landed with the rest of the team and tore off her sweaty cloak with a rabid fervor. The grass was cool and wet from the melted snow so she stretched out in it listening as the voices of her teammates faded away, but then someone sat heavily beside her and she found Harry grinning down at her. He babbled on for quite sometime (something about Ron and Hermione, neither of whom she was all that inclined to think about at the moment) and she made all the appropriate hmms and uh huhs counting the minutes until he would get bored and leave.  
  
The moment finally came and she gave Harry a small smile when he hesitated leaving her alone in the middle of the pitch.  
  
"I'll be right behind you," she said quietly. "Just give me a few more minutes. I'm quite relaxed, you know."  
  
After a goofy crack about her falling asleep out there and subsequently promising to come out and get her if she wasn't inside in twenty minutes, he finally swung his broom over his shoulder and strode back to the castle.  
  
He wasn't gone but five minutes when another set of footsteps could be heard.  
  
"Have you always been like this?" Draco voiced as he came to a halt a few feet away.  
  
"Like what?" she asked, without bothering to open her eyes. The grass was starting to become itchy against her bare arms and exposed lower back but she made no effort to move.  
  
"I think you know what I'm talking about," he replied and for a second she though he might sit down next to her and start spouting all the psycho babble that Dumbledore had done after "The Incident," but when she opened her eyes, he was still standing there, arms folded casually across his chest.  
  
"Yes, I do," she whispered and looked into his eyes, trying to read them, to see if he really did understand. "But, the question seems to be, do *you* know?"  
  
He chuckled, cold and harsh yet achingly beautiful. "I know more than you think, little girl. I know. I know that you are different than most. I also know why. I know what you lack."  
  
She could honestly say she was afraid of what his answer might be but she knew she had to ask the question. She had to know why. "What do I lack?" she questioned and she cringed at the desperate quality her voice had taken.  
  
He looked at her a moment, his eyes following the curve of her hip before meeting her gaze once again. "Self-contempt. So you come to me, the vilest person you know, and you say you want me to take you and teach you that self-contempt, for those around you have it and they seem to be able to enjoy life while you can't."  
  
Ginny looked up at him with wide eyes, instantly knowing that the boy standing over her was both a devil and an angel, a boy with the knowledge of a man.  
  
"So the answer is, yes. Yes, I understand you. And yes, I will take you... teach you." He paused and the wind ruffled his hair behind him. He seemed to be considering something. "But... you might not like what you learn," he added quietly. "Tomorrow night, right after dinner, meet me by the blood tapestry in the third level dungeon."  
  
Minutes later, she was still staring up at the place he'd been, watching as the twinkling stars grew brighter and more numerous.  
  
Harry Potter had to come out that night and drag her inside after all.  
  
* * * * * * * * * *  
  
There were many rules regarding their... situation. These rules were never spoken of, but then, they didn't need to be. They did not meet at set times, sometimes she would see him in the morning, other times at night. By a silent agreement, they did not talk, in fact the night she awoke in his room to find her knickers on Goyle's nightstand and that she had missed dinner was the first time more than two words had been used between the two of them. And when they met it was consistently she who made the arrangements. He never came to her.  
  
She had no clue if he was seeing any other girls as well and, quite honestly, she really didn't care one way or another.  
  
Nothing else in her life seemed to have changed though; she still struggled through each day, watching but never participating. And when she was with him, sheets clinging to sweaty skin, she forced herself to think about what her parents' reaction would be if they saw. Or her brothers. Or her roommates, teachers, or teammates. Or The-Boy-Who-Would-Not-Die. Anything to shock her system, to degrade herself, to make her hate herself, to hate what she had become.  
  
Even now, as she slowly descended into the bowels of the dungeon, trailing her fingers against the time-worn wall, she tried to be disgusted with herself.  
  
But she couldn't.  
  
She knocked softly, knowing full well that he wouldn't be there yet but manners required her to. He never was there before her.  
  
So when she heard his muffled voice say, "Come," she sucked in a quick breath and pushed open the door.  
  
He was seated cross-legged on his bed; the top of his crisp, white shirt unbuttoned, tie loosened, socks off, and as he poured over the book in his lap, a rebellious strand of hair slipped down across his face. She was momentarily taken aback. She had never seen him so... casual. Even when he was starkers he had a certain amount of elegance.  
  
Silently she took off her trainers and socks and sat on his desk, leaning back against the wall, content to wait until he wanted her. Twenty minutes passed without a sound and Ginny continued to stare at the wall nonplussed. She had all her homework done anyway.  
  
Ginny had always been an extremely patient person. Maybe it was the fact that she spent so much time focused inward that when she was forced to, it came as second nature to her. Whether that was true or not, she had no objections to wait until Malfoy was ready.  
  
The time soon came when he set the book aside and threw his tie to the floor. She needed no other invitation. Smoothly, she slid off the desk and dropped the old Slytherin cloak, which smelled so much like mildew no matter how many times she washed it, to pile messily on the floor. By the time she climbed up onto the bed, she wore only her skirt.  
  
Without warning, he grabbed her wrist harshly and yanked her around until she was positioned underneath him. He liked to be in control. The rest of their clothes soon joined those on the floor and he gripped the back of her neck fiercely as his lips ground into hers. The violence of his attack was something she likened to cobra and she imagined herself as being poisoned under his bite.  
  
And bite he did.  
  
He began with her neck, almost piercing the sensitive flesh beneath her jaw, and she welcomed the pain, forcing herself to keep her eyes open. That was one thing she had learned from him. No matter what he did to her, what she did to him, his eyes remained open, alert, although rarely was he looking at her. In fact, he tended to focus on anything *but* her, but it wasn't a point of contention with her. He could look at a picture of Snape the whole time for all she cared.  
  
Then she could feel nothing but tension, nothing but the pounding of blood in her ears, the feel of his hands and his lips and his body and *him*, and it took all her concentration not to cry out but to think again about those who she was betraying.  
  
It never really worked.  
  
Soon, she *was* crying out, holding tightly to his shoulders as she shuddered a painful release. And then she was left cold as he rolled off her and sauntered towards the bathroom.  
  
But just before he crossed the threshold, he said, "Oh, and don't fall asleep this time. I have another girl on her way over. And clean this place a bit, will you? It's a mess."  
  
Ginny's eyes narrowed slightly at his retreating backside, and it wasn't out of jealousy. If he wanted to have relations with all the girls of Hogwarts, it wouldn't bother her. It was just another reason for her to dislike him is all. So, purely out of annoyance of his arrogance, Ginny hurriedly got dressed (knocking a few things off the desk and nightstand purposely while doing so) and stalked into the bathroom where the shower was running.  
  
Before he noticed her presence, she did something he had long in the coming. She flushed the toilet and grinned maliciously when he screamed like a girl.  
  
Payback's a bitch.  
  
* * * * * * * * * *  
  
TBC...  
  
Author's Note #2: Draco and Ginny's conversation on the pitch was influenced by Ayn Rand's amazing novel, The Fountainhead. 


End file.
